what’s preventing China from just taking ALL of Russia
What for? Russia is already drifting into becoming a China’s satellite state. Besides, there’s another resource-rich, sparsely populated, 99.9% Asian country right by their border, with barely any security and which would’ve been part of China already if not for some weeb. If they are going for conquest, Mongolia would be the second target right after Taiwan, but attacking it would tip off Russia to go all in on defense.
Russia would never threaten China with nukes, because 1) China ALSO has nukes, and 2) China has been the only thing keeping Russia afloat recently.
The problem here is the amount of them and population density. Just one bomb dropped randomly somewhere in China would probably cause more casualties than the entire Chinese nuclear arsenal targeting the most populous Russian cities. And Russia has an order of magnitude more…
Mongolia is a democracy and NATO partner there’s a chance that the west would actually care. Mostly though neither China or Russia are even trying to touch it because they prefer having a buffer state in between them that is not aligned to either, but has the diplomatic wherewithal to have good relationships with both.
Also it’s a fucking desert plateau. There’s a reason there’s so few Mongolians. Few things grow there and practically nothing grows well, and there already is quite an issue with overgrazing because animal husbandry is pretty much the only thing you can actually do on the land. And who is to say that copper is going to be cheaper after you conquer the land? It’s not like Mongolia would be unwilling to export. Even if you could do it for cheaper, still probably not worth the political headache. And sanctions.
Mongolia is a democracy and NATO partner
Seeing how they were happy to meet Putin the other day, it didn’t look like. It was like watching a dog meeting his master after a long time
They were also happy to not give permits for the Power of Siberia pipeline. They’re 3.5m people on a gigantic piece of land right in between Russia and China, I don’t blame them for appeasing: Their very existence hinges on convincing two authoritarian states that they’re not a puppet of the other. In this case, also convincing them that they’re not a puppet of what they’re calling their third neighbours. They’re doomed to neutrality.
Criticise any other country for not executing that arrest warrant, or at least uninviting Putin, heck while you’re at it criticise a couple of alleged democracies that they’re not a signatory: But not Mongolia. They have damn good reasons to not go through with it and as far as I’m aware, that’s actually covered in the Rome statute. They’re pulling the national security card and they’re right about it.
